


just when that day is coming, who can say?

by solacefruit



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Beta Read, Gen, indent isn't working much so unfortunately it's all over the place right now., very slight canon divergence + recharacterisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-10 20:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19911466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solacefruit/pseuds/solacefruit
Summary: There wasn’tonestart. That was the problem, really, he thought, as he flexed his claws in the dark loamy soil. It was like having a flea in his skull, plinking around between his thoughts all day every day, andbiting.That was the worst part. Itchy and relentless, constant biting in his brain.When you thought of it that way, he reasoned to himself, it’s only natural for any cat to scratch.Or: the rise and fall of Brokenstar.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _I’m gonna get myself in fighting trim,_   
>  _scope out every angle of unfair advantage,_   
>  _I’m gonna bribe the officials,_   
>  _I’m gonna kill all the judges,_   
>  _it’s gonna take you people years to recover from all of the damage_

Brokentail lay waiting under a large blackthorn bush, tail tip twitching in the awkward, jerky way it did. He had already cleaned the blood from his face, although there hadn’t really been that much of it to begin with.

The quarrel hadn’t started out as much, either. At first, it was the usual barbed—but harmless—banter of young warriors: whose claws are longer, whose whiskers sharper. Today, it was whose kill was best and biggest. 

Brokentail had caught a rabbit kit. 

Thistlewhisker had caught a rabbit, fully grown and well-muscled. 

And the annoying thing was, Brokentail didn’t care about _that_. He’d never entertained aspirations of being Shadowclan’s greatest hunter and a young rabbit was good enough for a short early evening hunt, in his opinion.

It was what Thistlewhisker _said_ after the hunt that started the fight. 

_Well_ , thought Brokentail. _Not exactly._

There wasn’t _one_ start. That was the problem, really, he thought, as he flexed his claws in the dark loamy soil. It was like having a flea in his skull, plinking around between his thoughts all day every day, and _biting_. That was the worst part. Itchy and relentless, constant biting in his brain. 

When you thought of it that way, he reasoned to himself, it’s only natural for any cat to scratch. 

On the breeze, Brokentail caught a familiar scent and sat up. A few moments later, the big, dark shape of Raggedstar, the leader of Shadowclan, prowled around a nearby clump of hogweed and into full view. 

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Raggedstar lashed his tail and approached. Brokentail refused to blink until the dark tabby sat beside him. 

“Thistlewhisker isn’t badly hurt,” said Raggedstar after a pause. “And after an apology from you, we can all put this behind us.”

Brokentail bristled. “And if I don’t apologise?”

“You _will_ apologise, because _you_ attacked a clanmate, Brokentail.” There was a deep, unhappy growl in Raggedstar’s voice when he spoke. 

_Good_ , thought Brokentail, but he said nothing.

“I am the leader of Shadowclan,” continued Raggedstar. “My word is law, as you know. And every Shadowclan cat must follow my lead, including _you_ , my son. One day, Shadowclan will follow your lead but until your time comes, _I_ am the law. Do you understand me?”

Brokentail set his jaw and stared at the claw-marks in the loam in front of him.

“ _I said_ , do you understand me, Brokentail?”

“Yes… father.”

“You have embarrassed me today, you do realise that, don’t you?” Raggedstar sighed. “I don’t _want_ to punish you. You are my son. I have always been lenient with you, because we both know you are not like the rest of them, but if you insist on breaking the law so openly— _my_ law, given to me by Starclan—you will make a terrible leader of me.”

Brokentail could feel his father’s amber gaze settle on him, like the glowing eyes of a thunderpath monster. 

“This is why you have to apologise. If I let you ignore the code, the clan will lose faith in _me_. They will think they can ignore my law too.”

Raggedstar stood up, giving his heavy coat a little shake. 

“Come back with me now and it will be forgotten by moon-high,” he said before prowling back towards the clump of hogweed. “There’s still a pigeon and a few mice left, and I put aside that rabbit kit for you. You did well with that one, by the way, Brokentail. The best I’ve seen this season.”

“You haven’t even asked why,” said Brokentail quietly.

Raggedstar glanced back at him.

“Why what?”

“Why I did it,” replied Brokentail. 

For a moment, his father still looked a little perplexed, as if Brokentail had just suggested that, actually, perhaps all it took for cats to fly like goshawks was a really good jump and a strong wind. It clearly hadn’t occurred to him to even contemplate the question, let alone ask it.

“It doesn’t _matter_ , Brokentail,” said Raggedstar, in what he probably thought was a heartening way. “I forgive you for—”

“ _No_.” Brokentail was on his paws now, claws unsheathed, his bent tail a crooked brush. “It matters.”

“At your age, it’s not uncommon to be a little… over-enthusiastic with your tussling,” said Raggedstar. Brokentail marvelled at his father’s ability to tell himself whatever he wanted to hear, and ignore everything else. “You got… carried away this time, but you’ll be more careful next time, I’m sure.”

Brokentail hissed softly, out of pure frustration. 

“ _No_ ,” he said. “I bit Thistlewhisker because she said to me, right in front of everyone, exactly what you just said.”

Raggedstar, if possible, looked even more confused. “What are you talking—”

Brokentail put on a mocking imitation of Thistlewhisker. “I caught this buck in a heartbeat, but who cares? Raggedstar’s going to see your rabbit kit and tell you how _wonderful_ you are, Brokentail, how _talented_ \--isn’t it the best you’ve _ever_ seen, Pinepelt? Probably the son of the warren’s leader, don’t you think?”

Brokentail was able to repeat it word-for-word. It had been mostly all he could think about after Raggedstar told him to get out of the camp and wait by the blackthorn copse.

“They all thought it was funny,” said Brokentail. 

_They all think it_ , the little dark voice added. _Every clanmate. Every cat of every clan, in fact. They all know how Raggedstar sees you—and they only see what he says they should when they look at you_.

All but one, he remembered. There was… her, the one who always looked at him with those round orange eyes as if trying to see right into his bones. She so often looked like she _did_ see him, past Raggedstar’s shadow… and didn’t like what she saw. 

Raggedstar’s ears had flattened further with every word Brokentail had recited. 

“So you fought a clanmate?”

 _It was hardly a fight_ , said a vicious, proud voice inside Brokentail’s chest, close to where his purr lived. “I taught them a lesson they won’t forget by moon-high,” he spat back. “It’s one I want you to learn too.”

He skulked angrily after Raggedstar, until they were glaring eye-to-eye.

“I’m _special_ ,” said Brokentail. 

Raggedstar looked immediately mollified. “Yes, of course you’re special, you’re—”

“ _Listen to me_. I’m special and it’s not because I’m your son. It’s because I’m _me_. I’m smart, father, and I’m strong and I’m going to be the leader of Shadowclan, like you said. I’m going to lead us into glory. I’m going to be remembered for all time, by every clan.”

His father looked torn between emotions—between confusion, and hurt, and that one Brokentail hated most: pride. 

“I know all this, Brokentail,” he replied, with a gentleness Brokentail didn’t expect and that he resented. “I’ve always known your destiny will be great. But you are also my son, and you can’t pretend that the clan—all the clans—don’t know that. I have always claimed you as mine, because I’m so _proud_ that you are—”

“I am drowned in your shadow!” yowled Brokentail. He took a shuddering, steadying breath. 

Raggedstar, saying nothing, glanced to the sky.

Brokentail had no guess as to what he was thinking, but perhaps it was a prayer. Following his father’s gaze, he saw that already there were more stars than Shadowclan had warriors, all glinting down at them from the purpling night sky. 

Ancestors, watching Brokentail. Watching Raggedstar. 

“We are Shadowclan,” Raggedstar replied. “Whether you like it or not, we both have to live up to our ancestors. Every mighty and noble warrior that has ever lived before us. Even Shadow herself. We _all_ have a lot to prove, my son. I am doing my best to earn my place among the great leaders of the past. You have to do the same.”

“How can I when everyone looks at me and sees your son, only ever your son?” said Brokentail, surprising himself. He hadn’t meant to ask. He shook his head and added, “I’m _already_ doing my best.”

 _You’ve decided everything for me_ , he thought. A seething anger roiled in his belly, like lightning in storm clouds. _My future. My name_. _Even my reputation, my achievements, it’s all contributed to you. To being_ your son. _What part of me is actually_ mine _?_

“You think I don’t understand how you feel,” said Raggedstar. “Perhaps I don’t. Not fully. But one day, Brokentail, I will tell you about _my_ father and you will understand _me_ a little better. I don’t think you’re ready for my story just yet but, if you can believe it, I _do_ know how hard it can be to have a father. And maybe one day _you_ will know how hard it can be to be one.”

Brokentail hissed. 

“You _can_ talk to me,” said Raggedstar. Brokentail silently translated: you can talk, but I will hear what I want. 

There wasn’t anyone else to talk to, of course. Brokentail had never really made friends as an apprentice: other apprentices _tried_ to like him, but there was a cautious, calculating deference there that made it hard to believe they really meant it. Most of the time, Brokentail—Brokenpaw back then—suspected they either pitied him for his crooked tail, or saw him as a chance at making a good impression on Raggedstar. Sometimes both. 

His mother was no better, although, like Raggedstar, she would probably try to look like she was listening. 

Lizardstripe wasn’t a terrible mother. She had always been a bit inattentive, with a tendency to resent nursery duties—she was a natural patroller and warrior, and any time not out and about was wasted in her eyes—but between the various Shadowclan queens’ tending and Raggedstar’s insistence that his son be treasured, Brokenstar and his littermates never wanted for much growing up. It had always been slightly awkward between them, though.

Brokentail realised, quite early in his life, that Lizardstripe was probably not his mother--at least, not any more than any other queen in the nursery at the time. Raggedstar had never claimed the others of Lizardstripe’s litter, and he never seemed to notice _her_ either, beyond a short conversation when he visited—which was, of course, only about Brokentail. It was delicately never brought up: not by Raggedstar, or Lizardstripe, or Mudclaw, or Brokentail’s littermates. 

All of them just treated him _carefully_. Mudclaw conscientiously tussled with each kit for exactly the same amount of time, as if afraid of playing with him too much—perhaps fearing Raggedstar’s jealousy—and not giving him enough attention compared to his own kits—perhaps fearing Raggedstar’s wrath. 

Lizardstripe by comparison groomed him slightly _more_ than the others, especially when Raggedstar was on the way, which Brokentail presumed (quite accurately, he thought) was because it looked good to adore the leader’s son. His siblings acted, of all cats, the most normal around him, playing and pouncing and teasing as healthy kits are supposed to—until they became apprentices and then became, unfailingly, _polite_ to him. 

It was infuriating. 

Brokentail decided there was no point in continuing the conversation with Raggedstar.

He turned back around and stalked back to the blackthorn. 

“Brokentail?” said Raggedstar from behind him, still waiting by the hogweed. 

Brokentail said nothing, dropping to lay in the cool shade of the branches once more. He could feel the prickle of Starclan above judging him and he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of the view. 

“If you won’t come home and apologise, you can stay here alone tonight. A vigil to think over your choices,” said Raggedstar. He sounded defeated, but Brokentail didn’t feel victorious. 

There was a silence between them. The only sound was the faint rush of a monster along the thunderpath, far away. 

“Very well,” said Raggedstar. 

Brokentail listened to him leave; he padded more heavily away than a good warrior ought to. 

Then he was alone, again.

But now he was thinking on what his father had said. 

_I am the law_ _and every Shadowclan cat must follow my lead_.

It was true. However, it was the kind of truth that revealed something else in the telling: there was no law _outside_ of Shadowclan. 

At least, thought Brokentail, not yet. 

He was to be Shadowclan’s future law, but already he suspected it would be a difficult journey there. He would need his own followers to begin with—cats who knew him for his _own_ merit, for his own strength and vision, and not for his beloved father. 

He thought for a little while longer, still and silent. Then he got up, stretched, and prowled away into the dark, towards the distant town. 

He had been given a gift: a full night’s vigil, alone and unwatched—except by the ancestors.

He would not waste this chance. 


	2. gonna commandeer the local airwaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _to tell the neighbours what's been going on,_   
>  _and they will shake their heads_   
>  _and wag their bony fingers_   
>  _in all the wrong directions,_   
>  _and by daybreak we'll be gone_

Brokenstar lay waiting under the blackthorn, just long enough for the clan to get nervous. 

Well, _more_ nervous. Shadowclan was experiencing a kind of expansive nervousness you could feel on the air currents, the same way you could feel a storm prowling close before you could see the clouds darken. 

Brokenstar didn’t need to be in the campsite to feel his clanmates’ thoughts darkening, of course. It had been clear enough to see in every jittery movement before he left for his walk, in every flash of white in the corner of an eye—and more than that, he knew the nervousness was growing, because he had been the one to plant it there first. 

He had learned secrets about waiting. There was a lot you could do with doing nothing. In fact, if you did the right kind of nothing at exactly the right moment, he found that some cats would do worse to themselves than he could have even imagined and for much longer. And after you walked away, they would _keep going_. 

That was the thing about fear: it grew in daylight _and_ darkness. A little threat in the evening would keep a cat awake and worrying all day.

Even so, Brokenstar also knew that, sometimes, a demonstration of strength was needed. Words could do so much, but without the occasional reminder that words came from a place with teeth, they were only words. 

After all, wasn’t it said that no thorn is regarded more carefully than the one just stepped upon? 

Brokenstar needed a thorn. And he had the perfect cats in mind. 

Unhurriedly, he stood and stretched; it was time to return to his clan. 

He prowled back towards the campsite, past the reeking hogweed and meadowsweet clumps, as the waning sickle moon above shone down on the marshland, turning every little sliver of ditchwater milk-white and silver. 

The breeze tonight was not in his favour, blowing from the thunderpath towards the camp, which meant that, by the time Brokenstar reached the sprawl of thriving brambles that marked the start of the upper marsh, someone was waiting to meet him.

“Brokenstar,” said Toadfoot, with appropriate deference. Like all his followers, she did not dare look in his eyes, instead glancing at his paws as he passed her. 

“Has the patrol returned yet?” he asked. He had no intention of stopping to talk and she seemed to have guessed as much, as she at once fell into step beside him. 

“They have. Everyone is waiting, as you ordered.” 

“The medicine cats?”

“Waiting as well,” she replied. “Although not willingly, in one case,” she added after hesitation. “Boulder and Clawedface are guarding her now.” 

_Good_ , thought Brokenstar. 

She would be angry, and probably somewhere deep inside in that rank fur of hers afraid, and those two things made any cat stupid. He needed her to make a choice—or at least he _wanted_ her to. He had enough warriors now, all big and powerful and loyal, that he could do whatever he wanted and it would be hard for anyone to stop him, but it wouldn’t be the same. 

He wanted it to be done _right_. He had imagined this night for a long time. He had planned and considered and, in just a few words, he would make it real. Not just in the eyes of the cats who feared him, but in the eyes of Starclan. 

They gave him the law. He intended to use it. 

As the campsite came into view, Brokenstar muttered orders to Toadfoot and she bounded away. Then he strode into the centre of the Shadowclan camp.

Every gleaming eye turned his way. 

There had been enough waiting. 

He leaped upon the half-uprooted oak log that marked the centre of the camp and looked down at the cats gathered around it. 

“Cats of Shadowclan,” he said, into a breathless silence, “our first strikes against Windclan and Thunderclan have gone well. I know Starclan looks down on us—all of us, even our newest members—with such great _pride_. The loss of Rowanfur has been… a pity, it’s true. But a warrior’s death, especially in the service of the glorious future we are making for Shadowclan, is always noble. Always… worthy.” He paused. “Of course, now we have one less warrior and another battle approaching. The night before no-moon-sky, we will strike Windclan again— _harder_. We will avenge Rowanfur and we will drive them further back.”

Brokenstar waited, poised at the highest point of the log. He gave a flick of his tail and his warriors snarled their support on cue. 

“I have thought carefully about this sad loss and it has occurred to me that, once again, we have been letting old tradition guide us along a flimsy branch when, instead, we should look to the _law_. Our ancestors in their great wisdom gave us everything we need to become the clan we were meant to be—the _only_ clan. There is no space in this sacred country for any but Shadow’s followers. Haven’t we starved long enough in the marshland, when the undeserving feast in forests and on moors?” 

Another jerky tail flick. Another resounding roar of agreement. 

“We have no warrior to replace Rowanfur—no warrior can _ever_ be replaced—but I believe it is time,” Brokenstar said with relish, “for Shadowclan to welcome a new apprentice.”

This time, the noise that ruffled through the gathered cats was not support. It was confusion, concern. 

“Would Thistlewhisker come into the moonlight?” said Brokenstar. 

After a moment, the blue-grey molly crept forward. Her eyes were huge with worry. 

“You have raised fine kits,” said Brokenstar. He watched recognition slice her pupils to slits as she stared up at him. “They are already the pride of Shadowclan but—” He surveyed her for several heartbeats, enjoying the moment. “—I believe, with the right mentor, we can raise them higher.”

Brokenstar flicked his tail for a third time and Toadfoot walked into the moonlight as well, a much younger cat at her side. He looked uncertain but puffed out his chest once Brokenstar addressed him.

“Young Lichenkit, it is time for you to begin your training as a Shadowclan apprentice. You will receive Toadfoot as your mentor and from here on—”

“ _You can’t_.”

Satisfaction blazed through Brokenstar like midday sun, rich and warm and invigorating.

“Who dares interrupt this ceremony?” he snarled, knowing the answer already. “Step forward.”

There was an _ooft_ and the soft thudding of muscled bodies—no doubt Boulder and Clawedface getting pushed out of the way. 

Stormfang prowled out of the dark. 

She was large and ugly, even here in Shadowclan, where the only attractive feature worth showing off was a tattered ear or a haunch full of scars. No cat could be blamed for how they were born—but, nevertheless, the dark grey medicine cat was ugly. She seemed to be made of parts that weren’t meant to be put together.

Uglier now, too, Brokenstar noted, with her matted fur with streaks of dust and mud through. 

She had spoken out against him before, a moon or so ago, before the raids on Windclan began. He had taken away her privileges for it: no time with the elders, no time in the best sunning spots, and no-one was to groom her or fuss over her like they used to. She was made, in one moment, as much of an outcast as it was possible to be—short of banishment, of course. 

“You can’t do this, Brokenstar,” she said. Her voice was raspy but loud. “It’s against the code to train a kitten as young as he is.”

She had shouldered her way in between Toadfoot, who was glaring at her with fiercely flattened ears, and Thistlewhisker, who had been until her arrival pressed flat to the loam and seemed to be shivering. Now that Stormfang was there, Thistlewhisker turned her attention to her kit; her tail was wrapped around him and she was licking his head with a certain frantic determination, like she could clean this future off him now. 

“The code says—”

Brokenstar cut her off. “The code _says_ , Stormfang, that the leader’s word is _law_. Are you trying to say that my judgement is good enough for Starclan, but not good enough for _you_?”

Around the campsite, jeers and growls rumbled from Brokenstar’s warriors. 

“Your judgement is clouded,” replied Stormfang. 

Brokenstar bristled. 

“You see the code as whatever you want it to be,” she continued, relentless. “You sharpen your claws with it, like it’s alder bark.”

“Enough!” growled Brokenstar. “I can see you’ve learned _nothing_ from your last punishment!”

“I have learned more than you would like,” said Stormfang, quietly enough that Brokenstar wasn’t entirely sure if he’d heard her right. 

“I didn’t want it to come to this, but you must learn to respect your new leader, Stormfang, and I think it is time for a more permanent lesson.”

“No!”

The cry came up from the thronged darkness of gathered bodies and Pansynose, the medicine cat apprentice, scrambled forward. 

“Brokenstar,” he said, scurrying in beside Stormfang. His voice so much weaker than hers. His fear and uncertainty rattled in his skinny chest with every word he said. “Please, I don’t think you—I mean, you _must_ understand that we are medicine cats and the code is—it’s _everything_ to us and I—I don’t know if the code is, uh, meant to—that is, I don’t know if the rule ‘the leader’s word is law’ is meant to do… _that_.” He finished lamely, a slight wheeze in his breath. 

He stood beside Stormfang, trembling like aspen. His eyes were fixed on the black earth at his paws. 

Brokenstar sighed. “Is it not enough that your _leader_ knows, Pansynose? I have shared dreams with Starclan. I have inherited the code that they made. To question _me_ ,” he continued darkly, “is to question _them_. What kind of medicine cat would do that?” 

Brokenstar looked to Stormfang. 

To his unpleasant surprise, she stared back. Those wide orange eyes of hers watched him with unfathomable thoughts lurking behind. To meet them was… disconcerting, much like his own.

Pansynose noticed his gaze. “I think Stormfang meant to say—”

“I meant every word I said,” Stormfang snapped, blunt as a bull’s hoof. “But _you_ sound like you have a fever again. Why don’t you lie down a bit, apprentice? You don’t know which way is up. Burnet and chamomile will do.”

Pansynose blinked, as if dazed. He opened his jaws, perhaps to question, but Stormfang growled, “I don’t need you _here_ , Pansynose. Run along.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Brokenstar. The little tom, looking between his mentor and his leader, backed away, stinking of fear. “I’ll speak with you later.”

Then he turned his attention back to the cat who was, for a few more moments at least, Stormfang.

“You’ve repeatedly disrespected Starclan. You’ve disrespected your leader. In doing so, you disrespect our clan and disgrace yourself. A medicine cat who can’t even be bothered keeping herself clean… you do not deserve to represent Shadowclan any longer.”

“Maybe if there had been fewer wounds to treat this last moon, I would have found the time,” said Stormfang wryly. To Brokenstar’s continued discomfort, there was no fear scent on her yet and no sign of pleading. 

“I have no choice but to make it so that every cat knows what you have done,” said Brokenstar, choosing to ignore her comment. He raised his voice to its most commanding and mighty and look upward towards the moon. “Ancestors of Starclan, hear me now! You know every one of us by name. I ask you to take away the name of this cat, for she is no longer worthy of it. By my authority as leader of Shadowclan and in following your wisdom, this cat is now _Yellow_ fang. The rot she speaks into our clan must be known. It has stained her teeth and now her name.”

He looked down at the rank grey cat before him.

“So be it,” she said. 

“Yellowfang, this is your last warning. If you refuse again to behave as a Shadowclan medicine cat should, I will have no choice but to banish you. Do you understand?”

He expected to have to drag an answer from her, but she promptly replied, “You’ve been heard, Brokenstar.”

And then, with purpose, she looked past him and to the stars over his head. 

The fur along his spine tingled. 

“I have herbs to sort and wounds to tend,” said Yellowfang. Without hesitation, she turned and prowled back the way she had come. Another soft _ooft_ sounded like Clawedface may have gotten in her way again and, again, had been removed. 

There was a shiver that passed through the campsite as she left. But no-one dared speak. 

Brokenstar looked back down at the stricken Thistlewhisker. Lichenkit was still pressed close to her side. Beside them, Toadfoot looked eager. 

“Now...” said Brokenstar. “Our first new apprentice.”

* * *

After the ceremony--just Lichenkit this time, that would be enough for now—Brokenstar had grabbed a pigeon and lay in the far end of the campsite, pleasantly alone. Half the cats of the clan were too terrified to dream of approaching and the rest—his followers—would wait politely until he beckoned them over. 

Only one cat approached and was allowed to prowl closer. 

Blackfoot, the Shadowclan deputy, sat beside Brokenstar, with the air of a cat with a lot on his mind. 

Brokenstar respected Blackfoot: he was strong, as any warrior should be, but on top of that he was smart, which was something Brokenstar preferred to be limited to a select few in his clan. Blackfoot particularly was the kind of cat who _noticed_ things—and then went a step further and thought about them as well. He had, for instance, noticed almost at once when the winds of Shadowclan’s future turned due Brokenstar and he had found ways of making himself useful to the rising deputy. For that, he had been rewarded.

“I’ve sent another hunting party out,” said Blackfoot as Brokenstar crunched wing-bones. “I’m thinking extra hunts at night for a start, and scavenging from carrionplace during the day. Our warriors will need more food to prepare for this next push.”

There was clearly more he wanted to say. 

“That… apprentice.” A question hovered in the air between them, unspoken.

“He will join us in the raid,” said Brokenstar calmly. “Experience is the most thorough mentor.”

Blackfoot gave a slow nod. “Toadfoot is excited,” he said. “She’s wanted an apprentice since she was one herself. Whenever I looked at her, I thought to myself: there’s a young cat who’d do anything for an apprentice.” 

“The life of a loyal warrior is its own reward.” Brokenstar chewed the spine of the bird between his teeth. It crackled. “Hard work. A willingness to follow the rules. These are the ways any cat can prove themselves worthy.”

“Of course,” said Blackfoot. “But I wonder… if anything happened to that apprentice—say, for example, death …” His tone was light, conversational. 

“Again,” said Brokenstar between licks of his paw, having finished the pigeon. “Experience. We don’t stop learning as mentors, now, do we, Blackfoot?”

“A wise cat learns at every opportunity,” agreed Blackfoot. He said it with an efficiency that made Brokenstar think it was something he had been told endlessly as a young cat, and probably something he now told his apprentices at least as often. 

“Some cats are lessons for others.” Brokenstar decided to put his deputy’s mind at ease. “I doubt young Lichenpaw is in any real danger, however,” he said. “After all, Windclan—for their many faults—are hardly going to kill a scrawny thing like him on the battlefield. No, he’ll get his first taste of a fight, and then our medicine cats can look after him for a few days. It’ll toughen him up.”

More than that, Brokenstar thought, it will keep every single cat who doubts me in line. Accidents happen on battlefields all the time. Doing what they’re told is a good way to make sure Lichenpaw doesn’t meet one. 

“Which reminds me,” said Brokenstar, getting to his paws, “I need a word with our less filthy medicine cat. Tell me when the hunt returns.”

Blackfoot nodded, realising he was dismissed, and padded away to the warriors who were lingering nearby. 

Brokenstar prowled towards the medicine cat’s patch. 

It was a little way from the central camp, although Brokenstar didn’t really know why, or care. He had once overheard Pansynose saying something about infection a long time ago but that meant little to him. In Brokenstar’s mind, it was a way of keeping _her_ out. 

The bracken crowded under the single lonely yew of the medicine cat’s patch stank of her and Brokenstar curled his lip in distaste. 

“Brokenstar,” came the quivering voice of Pansynose, somewhere hidden deep in the bracken. “I’m here.” His long face peered out from under a wilting fern branch. 

“Where is Yellowfang?”

“She’s, uh, she said she had to collect twigs,” said Pansynose. “To chew on. ‘Enough to get these teeth clean.’ That’s what she told me.”

Brokenstar gave a mocking chuff. “That’ll take her a long time.”

Pansynose nodded. “That’s what she said too.”

“That’s all right.” In fact, it was better that way. “It is you I need to speak to.”

He nodded to his side, indicating for Pansynose to join him. 

Pansynose crept from the shadowy bracken and sat next to Brokenstar. Together, they looked back towards the camp.

“Shadowclan needs you,” Brokenstar said. “Yellowfang is less and less fit for the role of medicine cat every day. As we grow in strength, we need a medicine cat we can rely on. One who will do his duty, no matter what.”

Pansynose shifted uncomfortably beside him.

“They all know who is the _real_ medicine cat of this clan,” continued Brokenstar, gesturing with his nose back to the central campsite. “If I could, I would decree it now. But there are rules that must be followed—as you said. The law matters as much to me as it does to you, my brother.”

Pansynose, his littermate, startled slightly at the recognition. 

“For now, though, Yellowfang is our medicine cat, and you are her apprentice. You are also my littermate and so it pains me to tell you that you are stained by her too. There has been too much excitement tonight already, which is why I have decided to wait, but tomorrow at moon-high, you will be renamed as well.”

Pansynose went still beside him. 

“The ceremony will be brief. But I must show the clan that I don’t play favourites. It is important to me that when you rise—which you will in time, I’m sure—it will be because they see _your_ strength. Not mine. Soon, the clan will come to trust you again and, on that day, I will return your name to you.”

Pansynose made a soft, hurt noise. 

“Be a good medicine cat,” coaxed Brokenstar. “Treat their wounds. Respect your leader. That’s all it will take. A few moons and everything will be forgotten.”

The skinny cat sat in silence for a while. Brokenstar let him. He was in no hurry. He knew how to wait. 

After a long pause, Pansynose asked in a resigned voice, “Tomorrow night… what name will you give me?

Brokenstar remembered the day his littermate asked to be Yellowfang’s apprentice. He had been just as skinny then, gawky and weak. He’d been born sickly and never grew out of it. Most cats said he belonged at the medicine cat’s patch--but not every cat that said it meant it the same way. 

Brokenstar could remember how his littermate had been afraid of being too frail for the role, afraid Yellowfang would knock back his request at once and sneer. But she hadn’t. She’d said, _who better to care for the sick than someone who knows how they feel?_

“Runningnose,” said Brokenstar.


	3. a day when you feel better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _there's going to come a day when you feel better_   
>  _you'll rise up free and easy on that day_   
>  _and float from branch to branch,_   
>  _lighter than the air_
> 
> _just when that day is coming_   
>  _who can say,_   
>  _who can say?_

Brokenstar lay in darkness, waiting uncertainly. The world stank of Thunderclan. It was a rich, overpowering scent, even now after so many days lying in the middle of it. Uncountable wretched cats came and went, mixed in with all the unfamiliar smells of the forest: rotten leaves and sandy earth and so many trees. Most confusing of all, however, was the change in the wind. 

In the Shadowclan campsite, the creek-wind always smelled of thunderpath: the unnatural stink of tar-stone and oil strained through the overfull ditches of straggly teasel stalks and bushes of chervil. 

Here, that wind smelled overwhelmingly of pine. Only when the wind blew the other direction could he smell home and Brokenstar felt off-kilter with every breeze that passed his nose, turned about in his own head by the constant not-quite-familiarity of it.

Not that it mattered. He couldn’t return home, even if he could track it down on the wind. He had nowhere to go and he wasn’t sure if he had anyone to go to. Perhaps some were still looking for him. Perhaps not. He had sent out word: it was all he could do. 

He had no other choice but to wait and, well, not _see_. _She_ had made sure of that. 

She was the only other scent he could recognise among the throng of Thunderclan cats each day—as rank and wrong as ever. She stood out like an orange moon in a no-star night. 

It was an unhappy coincidence that the only cat from Shadowclan—not Shadowclan cat, of course, he _had_ banished her and meant it—who could speak to him was the same one he least wanted around. 

The first few days here he had been constantly tense, alert to danger but painfully unable to do anything about it. Each time a set of warriors approached to drop a carcass at his paws, Brokenstar expected the worst. He expected claws, and teeth, and mockery; he expected to be dragged by the scruff into the centre of the camp and mutilated some more, or killed, or perhaps thrown out of the camp and left to wander the forest until something else killed him for them. Any blinded, injured cat didn’t need enemies to be in trouble—but Brokenstar had made plenty of enemies. Windclan and the remainder of Shadowclan would both be waiting for him, with none of Thunderclan’s hospitality, he was sure.

But it hadn’t happened. He was fed, and even water was brought to him from time to time, soaked up by strange-smelling moss. Besides that, the Thunderclan cats had so far left him alone. Their leader visited once or twice, with simple questions that he largely refused to answer, and that was that. His days and nights, which had blurred together for the most part, had so far been peaceful. 

Yellowfang was less avoidable. She appeared to him every day, sometimes multiple times, but unlike the Thunderclan leader, who could quickly be turned away by silence, the old medicine cat didn’t seem to care one way or the other if Brokenstar talked. Most of the time, she sat nearby and noisily groomed herself. Brokenstar was subjected to hearing her wetly tending her thick matted fur, which she seemed happy to do as loudly as possible and without many attempts at conversation at all. 

It was, he decided, a different kind of torment. He imagined how much she must have enjoyed that for the first few days, but he had expected the pleasure to eventually wear off. But she continued to return. It seemed as if all her spare time, even time she could have spent in the best sun Thunderclan camp had to offer—now that she was one of them, she was entitled to that and more—sitting close to Brokenstar, saying nothing, nibbling off old claw-sheaths and scratching fleabites. 

It didn’t make sense. 

Resentfully, Brokenstar finally asked, “What do you want from me?”

Yellowfang was somewhere off to the side, munching at what sounded like an especially wet and difficult tangle. She didn’t stop her work to answer him and Brokenstar was aware he was being made to wait. He flexed his claws into the soft, sandy soil in from of him and breathed. He had time. It didn’t matter. He had nowhere to be.

Eventually, Yellowfang shifted about and gave a contented sigh, clearly having solved the knotted clump of fur. 

“What makes you think I want anything?” she asked in her raspy voice. 

“You’re here,” said Brokenstar, “when you could be over there.” He gestured with his nose in the direction of the camp centre. 

“It may surprise you,” said Yellowfang, “but in a healthy clan, cats can go wherever they want.”

Brokenstar flattened his ears. 

“You can be like that if you want,” she continued matter-of-factly, “but we both know I’m right. You’re not _stupid_ , Brokenstar. You know what you did.” She sighed. “If you weren’t callous and petty and cruel, you probably would have been a good leader for Shadowclan.” 

Brokenstar’s hackles rose, even though he knew he could do nothing.

“I _was_ a good leader,” he snarled. 

“No, you were a bully who got away with too much and had big dumb warriors to back you up,” snapped Yellowfang. “Now you’re here with no friends and no future. I hope it was worth it.”

Brokenstar meant to growl back a clever retort but instead came up with nothing. His jaw snapped shut. His ears remained flat. Beyond the rage he was feeling, something in the back of his mind was shouting at him. 

“Being a leader means making hard decisions,” he replied, after calming his temper a little. “In order to achieve greatness, sometimes—”

“Don’t give me that,” said Yellowfang at once. “Every leader has to make hard decisions all the time—same as medicine cats, and warriors, and skinny raggedy no-clan cats on the streets with a limp and six kittens. No-one’s any different there. Your problem is that you _enjoyed_ making life harder for everyone else. Your problem, Brokenstar, is thinking that somehow you’re different and the rules don’t apply to you.”

“I _am_ different,” snarled Brokenstar, wishing he could strike out into the dark at her. “I’ve always been special, it’s been my destiny to—”

Yellowfang made a rude noise. “ _Special_. Pah! Everyone’s special! No-one’s special! Who cares about special. That’s an empty word. It’s vanity.” He heard her tail sweep the loose earth. “No, what matters is if you really wanted to be a good leader, you could have chosen to any day. Like we all do. Every day, just making the best choices we can. And you didn’t, Brokenstar. You sat and you thought up the cruellest things you could do, and that’s what you did.”

The voice in the back of his mind jumped to the front. 

“ _Brokenstar_ ,” he echoed. “You called me Brokenstar.”

Yellowfang grunted. “It’s your name.”

“I would have thought you of all cats would have been glad to mock my sorry state,” he growled at her.  
Thunderclan only ever referred to him as Brokentail. He was a leader without a clan, a leader thrown from his place by some of his own clanmates more to the point. They seemed to believe it was fitting to rip from him his Starclan-given name and however much he hated them for it, he could understand it. It was not good to have two cats called _star_ in any one clan. It could make authority… unclear. 

Yellowfang gave a heavy sigh. “You still don’t get it. It doesn’t _matter_ what I think about it,” she explained. “You were accepted by Starclan—even though I don’t know what they were thinking when they let _that_ happen. That makes you Brokenstar. I can’t undo that, even as a medicine cat. That’s what you never understood, Broken _star_. We don’t get to pick and choose the bits we like. We follow the law that is, not whatever version of it suits you today. Don’t get me wrong,” she added, “I respect Starclan, not you.”

He heard her get up and shake her thick fur free of sand and dust. 

“As always, there’s work to do,” she said and, without another word, she left. 

It occurred to Brokenstar, who had nothing else to do but reflect now that she was walking away, that he had never heard her say goodbye. Not once. 

* * *

A gathering came and went, and Brokenstar overheard Thunderclan warned not to speak of him before they left. That was wise, he thought. Windclan and Shadowclan, as weak as they still were, had no love for him, and he suspected whatever love they had for Thunderclan’s recent busybodying would quickly be overcome by that loathing.

Yellowfang continued to visit him. Occasionally, she would talk about the news of the day, or tell him about what her new apprentice was learning, but Brokenstar barely listened. It was idle prattle, fit for a nursery or the elders’ den. After the gathering, however, she returned with news of Shadowclan.

“They’re doing well without you,” she said without inflection. 

“And without _you_ ,” Brokenstar muttered back. 

Yellowfang wheezed a chuff. “You think that’s an insult?” she said. “Perhaps you’re more stupid than I thought after all.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Shadowclan doesn’t _need_ me anymore and I didn’t leave Shadowclan with nothing when you banished me, either,” said Yellowfang. “Runningnose was my apprentice and the clan are doing well thanks to him. I did what was right. I trained him well in the time I had.” She sounded proud. “And now see how it goes on: he will train _his_ apprentice well and Shadowclan will always be cared for, long after I’m gone.”

Brokenstar said nothing. 

“Young Cinderpaw will soon be the one to take care of Thunderclan the same way,” she continued. “Few medicine cats ever get a chance to leave a pawprint on two clans like I am.”

Something clicked into place for Brokenstar. “A legacy.”

“Sure,” said Yellowfang. “You could call it that.”

Brokenstar had never thought of it that way before, but then again, he had never thought much about any medicine cat. They were useful, and they were dangerous—at least, Yellowfang had been—but he had never considered any of them _interesting_. Who cared if a medicine cat was forgotten in time? They were all more or less interchangeable: a body there to check kittens and count poppy seeds. They weren’t like leaders...

Yellowfang spoke, as if she knew what he was thinking. “What did _you_ leave Shadowclan?” she asked, then added, “Besides scars.”

Brokenstar bristled. 

“We were going to have all of this forest, and the moors, and the river,” he hissed at her. “Shadowclan was going to be the most powerful clan alive.” 

“But you _didn’t_ do that,” Yellowfang pointed out. “And now Shadowclan’s leadership is all over the place, like a fox on the thunderpath.” 

They sat together in silence, Brokenstar seething. 

She was right, but he wouldn’t admit it to her. 

Eventually, he said, “You never answered. What do you want? You must want something.” Everyone wanted _something_. A thought occurred to him. “Your name.”

“What about it?” said Yellowfang, sounding slightly confused.

“You want me to reverse the name-change,” explained Brokenstar. He remembered what she had said days beforehand about his name. “You want me to give your old name back.”

She took him by surprise by wheezing loudly at that.

“ _What_?” snapped Brokenstar. 

He got the feeling she was shaking her head at him. It took a little while for her amused chuffing to subside. 

“Well?” he demanded, when she seemed ready to talk again.

“You couldn’t give me a better name,” she replied. “I earned this one.”

Brokenstar bared his teeth in frustration. “Yes, I know, you’re a filthy old—”

A heavy paw tapped him clawlessly on the nose. 

“ _I wasn’t finished_ ,” said Yellowfang. “If you’re going to ask a question, shut up long enough to hear the answer. You and Raggedstar are a matching set all right,” she muttered and Brokenstar, concerned that the next swipe might come with claws, forced himself not to respond. “Anyway. I said I’m proud of this name, because I got this name for doing what was right.”

“There’s nothing honorable in being a stinking—”

“In standing up to _you_ ,” growled Yellowfang. “You still don’t get it. You tried to _destroy_ Shadowclan.”

“I tried to save it!”

“From what? The hard task of living?” said Yellowfang. “Don’t lie to yourself, Brokenstar. You always wanted power. What I don’t know is _why_.”

Brokenstar hissed softly under his breath.

Yellowfang said, “Besides, I don’t think getting a name from you now would mean much. I’ve been learning Thunderclan proverbs since I got here. There’s one they’ve got that says, ‘An adder can’t lick clean the wound.’ It means you can’t get the cure from the same place you got the poison. Now, I’m a medicine cat, so I’m not sure how much I believe that—there’s many plants that are life-saving in a small amount but if you have a bit too much, it’s a poison—but it’s certainly a thought.”

“So you _don’t_ want anything,” said Brokenstar. “You just enjoy lecturing me, then?” he sneered after a moment. “Is _that_ your revenge?”

“No revenge.” He heard Yellowfang yawn and scratch behind an ear. “I don’t bother with that nonsense. _You pissed on my moss, so I’ll piss on yours_. We all end up sleeping on soggy bedding. No, thank you, I’ll pass on that.”

It was weakness, thought Brokenstar. It was stupid and meek. Any cat who had a chance to strike out at those who wronged them and didn’t take it was a fool. After all, if a lesson wasn’t _taught_ , he had always reasoned, then how would anything change? And the sharper, the harsher the lesson, the faster it would be learned and the longer it would be remembered. It was just sense. 

“You’d rather sleep in disgrace alone?” he sneered. 

It was, more or less, what she’d done back in Shadowclan. He had forced her to the fringe, living in yew-tree shade with only Runningnose for company, eating the worst of what Shadowclan had to offer, branded with the most humiliating name Brokenstar could devise. If any one cat had a reason to seek vengeance against him, it was Yellowfang—but she didn’t. Brokenstar couldn’t imagine why not: why would any cat with claws and teeth and half a working mind _let_ such terrible things happen to them? And why would they then let it all go, with the one responsible helpless at their paws?

“No,” said Yellowfang. “That’s what _you’re_ doing.”

And she left.

* * *

Yellowfang stayed away more after that, visiting only now and then, speaking only a little. Another gathering came and went, but this time when the Thunderclan cats returned, they were soaked in fear and worry. Brokenstar could smell them long before they arrived back at the campsite and even from the edge of the camp, he’d been able to hear the concerned conversations: Windclan and Shadowclan had found out about him.

Any sane clan leader would hand him over. Any self-respecting clan leader wouldn’t. 

He expected to die either way. 

He could tell cats in Thunderclan would have gladly killed him themselves, if they thought they could get away with it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that: compared to Windclan and Shadowclan, Thunderclan had very little to resent him for personally. He hadn’t even told those warriors to steal those kits.

But their righteousness made him a perfect target, he suspected—they could feel good over killing someone so _bad_. Of course, Thunderclan warred with Windclan too, often; they seemed to have forgotten that. The only difference between Thunderclan and Brokenstar’s Shadowclan, that he could see, was that his warriors actually had the strength to take over the territory. Thunderclan either never had the vision nor the power to go through with that—but they hated _him_ for it. But that was always Thunderclan’s way: to them, living a warrior’s life was a game, something to pass the time until Starclan welcomed them to the home high above. 

In Shadowclan, a warrior’s life was full of hunger and the cold wasteland-wind and the harsh sounds of crows wheeling above, waiting for you to give up. Sometimes there was prey and sometimes there wasn’t. The times there wasn’t, you watched your clanmates starve—kits first, then elders, then apprentices, then you—or you crossed the thunderpath and you took what you needed. 

Brokenstar could remember, back when he was Brokentail, sitting with a select few of his most loyal followers under the blackthorn shrubs and explaining to them the wonderful dream that had come to him. He told them: every moon, we fight, we hunt, we starve, we steal, we fight. He told them: we take what we need to survive but every time we _suffer_ for it. He told them: what if, this time, there _was_ no next time?

He had imagined a future for Shadowclan where they had enough territory to never starve again, instead of the ragwort-ridden roadside and the sodden marshland that no-one else wanted. He imagined what it must be like to be Thunderclan, rich in prey and safety and shelter in every season. It wasn’t fair.

That was the realisation that changed everything. It _wasn’t_ fair. 

No-one would ever make it fair for them. No clan would give up territory to Shadowclan. Nothing would change because there was no great justice watching their plight who would finally say, “You deserve better than this.”

That’s when Brokentail had thought: why do we even _need_ the other clans? What do they do for us, but fight us and keep us trapped here in the marsh?

Thunderclan acted like there was a reason for it all, like every clan should be _allowed_ to exist—perpetually skinny and weak, as they may be; that part didn’t matter. What mattered was some ancient code of hospitality, maybe, telling them that things must always be this way, because things have _always_ been this way. Some tradition, some invisible rule...

Brokentail had said to his gathered warriors that night: _we deserve better than this_. We _can change it._

It had all gone wrong, in the end. And even now some days, lying in the dust as their prisoner, he would hear Thunderclan kittens playing nearby and jeering: “did you know that Shadowclan eats crowfood? _Gross_!”

Thunderclan loved to play the hero, but they never _had_ to pick along the thunderpath for carcasses in leaf-bare. It was easy to tell Shadowclan what to do and how to be, when you didn’t have to live it yourself, he imagined.

So Brokenstar waited, silent, listening to hear what the Thunderclan leader would decide to do with him.

He was surprised when he was allowed to stay--which meant, _to live_.

But he didn’t love Thunderclan any better for that.

* * *

Yellowfang visited after the last of the Windclan and Shadowclan raiders had been chased from the campsite. Brokenstar, shaken but alive, had huddled himself as comfortingly as he could and didn’t bother to lift his face from the thick fur of his tail as she sat down nearby. 

“Did they get you at all?” she asked, sniffing at him. “I’ve seen to the warriors already,” she added, as if concerned he might have thought she’d rush over to check on him. “It seems like no-one’s heart was really in this attack, lucky for you. Thunderclan has made a lot of friends recently.” 

Brokenstar didn’t comment on his luck, present or otherwise. He wasn’t sure which he had; being a living prisoner didn’t seem an improvement on his previous circumstances, and he would have preferred dying a warrior’s death than languishing here too.

“I’m not in pain,” replied Brokenstar. “I don’t need anything.”

He could feel Yellowfang appraising him, even with his face buried in his own fur. 

“Well,” she said, seemingly deciding he was telling the truth, “if that changes, you let me know. I’ll do what I can for you.”

“ _Why_?” Brokenstar hadn’t meant to ask. His voice came out soft and muffled.

“I’m a medicine cat,” said Yellowfang, with the tone of someone explaining something for the third time to a particularly dim kitten. “That’s what I do.”

“No.” Brokenstar finally looked, unseeingly, in her direction. “Why any of this? Why are you here, again and again? Why didn’t Thunderclan step aside and let Windclan and those traitors do what they wanted? They could have. They could have ended all… _this_.”

By this, he meant himself. Windclan and Shadowclan would regain their strength, they would try again. Thunderclan would—spoiled as they were—inevitably move into harder times and even their prey would be in short supply. They would have to feed him and defend him, loathing him all the while. He was a cost too high for even a robust clan to take on, and yet. Here he was. 

“Where do they think this is going?” he said. 

_Where do_ I _think this is going?_ wondered Brokenstar. He hadn’t expected to live this long. 

“I have no idea,” said Yellowfang. He was startled by her honesty: not by the fact she was honest, because she was known for saying exactly what she thought, but because she herself didn’t _know_. They hadn’t _told_ her, their precious new medicine cat. Which meant, perhaps _Thunderclan_ didn’t know. “But they’re protecting you because I asked them to.”

If Brokenstar was startled before, he was truly shocked now. 

“You _asked_ them?”

“I asked their leader,” corrected Yellowfang. She seemed to speaking… carefully. Her tone was decidedly neutral. “She believes you deserve their compassion. And their honour won’t allow them to throw you out, or give you over to your enemies. But I asked her.”

Brokenstar tried to make sense of this news. 

“I’ve given you every reason to hate me,” he said, after a moment of jumbled thought. 

“You’ve done your best,” agreed Yellowfang. She sounded tired. “And I’m doing mine, although too late, I fear.”

“Returning the favour?” growled Brokenstar. “Keeping me alive to torment me? I already hate you, you half-rotten corpse of a cat. What more can you do?”

“Do you _feel_ tormented, Brokenstar?” Yellowfang growled back. “Or have you been fed and treated kindly enough, more kindly than _you_ would ever treat a prisoner?”

Brokenstar bared his teeth, lip curled back in anger to hide his confusion. “For now maybe, but how long will that last? I’m not safe here: I’m _waiting_. That _is_ the torture. I know how it works.”

“You think everyone is like you?” Yellowfang snapped. “Only thinking of ways to hurt everyone else?”

“No,” growled Brokenstar. “Only me. Thunderclan might have welcomed _you_ , Yellowfang, but no clan will welcome me ever again. There’s no cat who’ll forgive _me_.”

There was a long pause between them.

“You haven’t asked for it,” said Yellowfang, softly. 

Brokenstar hissed. 

“I won’t beg,” he said, bristling all over, “and I’m not sorry. I did what no-one else was brave enough to do and I won’t pretend I wasn’t. Every clan can remember me in stories full of lies, but no-one can _ever_ say that Brokenstar backed down. I’m not a coward. I’m not _weak_.”

“It’s not weak to ask for forgiveness!” said Yellowfang. 

“It is,” said Brokenstar quietly, “if I don’t mean it. I won’t plead and say what you want to hear to save my own skin.” His ears were flattened to his skull as he glowered in her direction. “I guess you and I are alike, after all, Yellowfang. I wouldn’t do anything differently, no matter what you offered me.”

There was a tense moment. Even without seeing her, Brokenstar could feel the tremours of feeling in the air around them, like the tingle before lightning.

“Your brother always spoke highly of you,” said Yellowfang, again in that same strange neutral tone from before. 

Brokenstar flinched at the association.

“He was proud, I think, of you. He believed Raggedstar—that you were destined to be a great leader one day,” she continued. “The whole clan did, in fact. They loved you, in their own way. Even me.”

“ _Shut up_.” Brokenstar felt spit fly as he snarled. “You don’t know anything.”

“I’ve always wondered what... went wrong with you,” said Yellowfang. “Where your hate comes from. In a clan that loved you…”

“You think love is enough?” Brokenstar lurched to his paws, the fur along his spine raised like the points of holly leaves. “You think love is _respect_? You _earn_ respect. I earned mine. I did what I had to.” 

“Was it worth it?” Yellowfang’s voice was cold. “Do you think Raggedstar would be proud of seeing who his son became?”

“He never saw who I was,” said Brokenstar, sitting back down. His hackles were lowering. 

“I did,” said Yellowfang. “I always suspected there was a darkness in you.”

Brokenstar settled his ruff with an unconcerned shake. 

“Even as you got more and more cruel,” Yellowfang continued, “Runningnose always believed that there was a good cat in you somewhere, clawing to get out. He thought, if you were given the chance, maybe you would regret what you were doing. Look for forgiveness. Change.” She paused for a moment. “Perhaps that was his biggest mistake.”

“And _your_ biggest mistake?”

Even though he could see nothing, he could feel the intensity of her stare at that moment; he could feel her orange eyes looking into his own.  
“Maybe it was hoping he was right,” she said, and prowled away from him. 

* * *

Brokenstar lay on the sandy earth, in the ever-present darkness, his nose clotted with blood. Even in this haze, he had heard Yellowfang’s approach through the crowd of cats; with the little strength he had left, he responded feebly to her muttered commands and shouldering, as she forced him away from the centre of camp. More than once when his steps faltered, she grabbed his scruff as if to drag him, like a queen with her tired kit. 

In the distance, Thunderclan yowled and argued, but Brokenstar didn’t care. The plan—what he’d known was his last chance at a life on his own terms—had failed. His followers, still loyal, still hoping for his return, had fled, defeated. He would not get another opportunity to leave, especially now. This was, one way or the other, the end for him. 

Yellowfang shunted him into the medicine cat’s den. 

Lightheaded and exhausted, he lay on his side, surrounded by soft, new-green scent of young ferns growing. It was funny, he thought. There was bracken at Shadowclan’s medicine cat patch, too, and being here, with Yellowfang beside him in the cool shade of ferns, his eyes unseeing the rest of the forest, it was nearly like being home. He could still remember being an apprentice, in pain like he was now, obligingly chewing on bark and stinking leaves after his first battle as Yellowfang scolded him for recklessness and praised him for bravery in equal measure. 

“Lie still,” said Yellowfang, gently. “You’re hurt, but you’re going to be fine.”

“Not bleeding to death?” he managed to say, his voice sounding quiet even to his own ears. His mouth tasted of blood and dust. 

“You don’t seem to be,” said Yellowfang. She was checking his wounds, sniffing and prodding lightly, making him wince. 

“That’s too bad,” he said, barely more than a breath. “ _No better way to die than die the death of Shadow_.” It was an old Shadowclan mantra, as old as the clan itself. Shadow herself had died on the battlefield, they said, or of her wounds in the medicine cat’s den after. The first leader to give up her life for her clan, for her purpose. Most warriors went to battle with her fate in mind: if you had to die, you ought to die fighting. 

“I’ve always thought the best way to die was old,” said Yellowfang. “Surrounded by kits and great-grand-kits, I’ve heard.” She paused. “It’s harder to live than to die, after all.”

Brokenstar wheezed. Blood bubbled from one nostril. “I don’t think that future waits for either of us.” 

Yellowfang finished checking him and seemed to hesitate before speaking. “Perhaps it could?” 

“Not for me,” said Brokenstar with a shake of his head. “Thunderclan will throw me out after this, no matter how nice you ask them. I would have preferred my throat bit out when their warriors had the chance just now. Better that than staggering out in their wretched forest starving for a few days until a fox finds me.” He gritted his teeth for a moment, a fresh agony gripping his body. “Can you do something for this? That’s your job, isn’t it? This pain is bad and I don’t want to go out limping on my last patrol.”

Yellowfang said, “All right.” 

She stepped away from him to snuffle about in her stores, hopefully for something that would numb the vicious throbbing of his wounds and, he thought to himself, perhaps the fear he was starting to feel. It would be a slow death, wandering alone, not knowing where he was going. 

“Besides,” he continued, trying to keep his mind off the pain of his wounds, “I never thought you were the kit type. You’d break the code, at your age?” 

There was a profound silence. 

“I did, once.”

Brokenstar blinked, even though it made no difference. “ _You had kits_?”

“Just the one,” she said from over among the ferns. “A strong little tom. Forbidden, of course, so I had to give him up. But I never stopped caring… and as he grew, I was so proud.”

A strange new feeling was prickling at Brokenstar, almost like fear. 

“This clan took me in, Brokenstar,” said Yellowfang. “I was a prisoner, just like you. But eventually, they trusted me and now I’m their medicine cat. This clan is where I belong.” She sighed. “But even so, even if I begged as your mother, they won’t forgive you for this. They will never trust you. No cat ever will again.”

She padded over to him, dropping something at her paws. It smelled familiar.

“I can give you something for the pain,” she said. “I can make it so it all ends now.”

He listened to what she didn’t quite say.

“I’m not afraid to die,” he said and meant it.

“I know,” she replied. “You’ve always been brave.”

Brokenstar sniffed at the berries in front of him. _Yew_ , his nose told him, belatedly. Just like the tree back home. 

“This is more than I deserve from you,” he said. 

“Starclan will decide what you deserve,” said Yellowfang. “But I am a medicine cat. I tend the wounds and soothe the pain and, when the time comes, it’s my job to make the journey to Starclan a little easier.”

Brokenstar’s paws were trembling slightly when he reached for the berries. He recognised the gift she was offering him.

“Thank you,” he said to Yellowfang.

“I’ll wait with you,” his mother said.

**Author's Note:**

> _there’ll always be a few things,_   
>  _maybe several things,_   
>  _that you’re gonna find really difficult to forgive_
> 
> — Up The Wolves, by the Mountain Goats.


End file.
